1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooking apparatus, and more particularly, to a cooking apparatus constructed in a structure to improve user convenience.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Various kinds of products, such as a microwave oven and an oven, have been used as cooking apparatuses. The microwave oven is a kind of cooking apparatus which cooks food using only a magnetron or jointly a magnetron and a heater. The oven is another kind of cooking apparatus to heat hermetically sealed food such that the food is cooked by dry heat. Electricity or gaseous fuel is used as an energy source to supply heat to the food.
The oven includes an oven unit to cook food using high-temperature heat in a hermetically sealed space and a cooktop unit to cook food in a direct heating fashion.
The oven unit cooks bulky food using convective heat and radiant heat. In the oven unit is mounted a heater to heat food. The heater may be used to bake bread or cake. Also, infrared rays may be irradiated to broil fish. On the other hand, the cooktop unit cooks food using radiant heat transmitted from burners mounted above the oven unit and conductive heat transmitted from a container to the food.
However, the conventional cooking apparatus has the following problems.
First, when an object to the heated is placed on the cooktop unit to cook food, it is required that a user bend his/her back to check the state of flames so as to control the amount of heat applied to the object according to the state of the food.
Second, it is required that the user open a door of the oven unit to check the state of food or look in the oven unit from the outside of the door with the naked eye so as to check the cooked state of the food which is being cooked in the oven unit.
When the user opens the door of the oven unit so as to check the cooked state of the food, heat in the oven unit is directly transmitted to the user with the result that the user may get burnt. Also, the leakage of heat results in the loss of energy. On the other hand, when the user checks the cooked state of the food from the outside of the door without opening the door of the oven unit, it is difficult for the user to accurately check the cooked state of the food.